Preface

The Red Book contains a large number of verses. A few are included in the
narrative of the Downfall of the Lord of the
Rings, or in the attached stories and chronicles; many more are found on
loose leaves, while some are written carelessly in margins and blank spaces. Of
the last sort most are nonsense, now often unintelligible even when legible, or
half-remembered fragments. From these marginalia are drawn Nos.
4, II, 13; though a better example of their general character would be the
scribble, on the page recording Bilbo's When winter first begins to bite:

The wind so whirled a weathercock
He could not hold his tail up;
The frost so nipped a throstlecock
He could not snap a snail up.
'My case is hard' the throstle cried,
And 'All is vane' the cock replied;
And so they set their wail up.

The present selection is taken from the older pieces, mainly concerned with
legends and jests of the Shire at the end of the Third Age, that appear to have
been made by Hobbits, especially by Bilbo and his friends, or their immediate
descendants. Their authorship is, however, seldom indicated. Those outside the
narratives are in various hands, and were probably written down from oral
tradition.

In the Red Book it is said that No. 5 was made by Bilbo, and No. 7 by Sam
Gamgee. No. 8 is marked SG, and the ascription may be accepted. No. 12 is also
marked SG, though at most Sam can only have touched up an older piece of the
comic bestiary lore of which Hobbits appear to have been fond. In The Lord of
the Rings Sam stated that No. 10 was traditional in the Shire.

No. 3 is an example of another kind which seems to have amused Hobbits: a
rhyme or story which returns to its own beginning, and so may be recited until
the hearers revolt. Several specimens are found in the Red Book, but the others
are simple and crude. No. 3 is much the longest and most elaborate. It was
evidently made by Bilbo. This is indicated by its obvious relationship to the
long poem recited by Bilbo, as his own composition, in the house of Elrond. In
origin a 'nonsense rhyme', it is in the Rivendell version found transformed and
applied, somewhat incongruously, to the High-elvish and Númenorean
legends of Eärendil. Probably because Bilbo invented its metrical devices
and was proud of them. They do not appear in other pieces in the Red Book. The
older form, here given, must belong to the early days after Bilbo's return from
his journey. Though the influence of Elvish traditions is seen, they are not
seriously treated, and the names used (Derrilyn, Thellamie, Belmarie, Aerie)
are mere inventions in the Elvish style, and are not in fact Elvish at all.

The influence of the events at the end of the Third Age, and the widening of
the horizons of the Shire by contact with Rivendell and Gondor, is to be seen in
other pieces. No. 6, though here placed next to Bilbo's Man-in-the-Moon rhyme,
and the last item. No. 16, must be derived
ultimately from Gondor. They are evidently based on the traditions of Men,
living in shorelands and familiar with rivers running into the Sea. No. 6
actually mentions Belfalas (the windy bay of Bel), and the Sea-ward
Tower, Tirith Aear, or Dol Amroth. No. 16 mentions the Seven Rivers that
flowed into the Sea in the South Kingdom, and uses the Gondorian name, of
High-elvish form, Fíriel, mortal woman. In the Langstrand and Dol
Amroth there were many traditions of the ancient Elvish dwellings, and of the
haven at the mouth of the Morthond from which 'westward ships' had sailed as far
back as the fall of Eregion in the Second Age. These two pieces, therefore, are
only re-handlings of Southern matter, though this may have reached Bilbo by way
of Rivendell. No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean,
concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain
echoes of the Númenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf.

Nos. 1 and 2 evidently come from the Buckland. They show more knowledge of
that country, and of the Dingle, the wooded valley of the Withywindle, than any
Hobbits west of the Marish were likely to possess. They also show that the
Bucklanders knew Bombadil, though, no doubt they had as little understanding of
his powers as the Shirefolk had of Gandalf's: both were regarded as benevolent
persons, mysterious maybe and unpredictable but nonetheless comic. No. I is the
earlier piece, and is made up of various hobbit-versions of legends concerning
Bombadil. No. 2 uses similar traditions, though Tom's raillery is here turned in
jest upon his friends, who treat it with amusement (tinged with fear); but it
was probably composed much later and after the visit of Frodo and his companions
to the house of Bombadil.

The verses, of hobbit origin, here presented have generally two features in
common. They are fond of strange words, and of rhyming and metrical tricks - in
their simplicity Hobbits evidently regarded such things as virtues or graces,
though they were no doubt mere imitations of Elvish practices. They are also at
least on the surface, lighthearted or frivolous, though sometimes one may
uneasily suspect that more is meant than meets the ear. No. 15, certainly of
hobbit origin, is an exception. It is the latest piece and belongs to the Fourth
Age; but it is included here, because a hand has scrawled at its head Frodos
Dreme. That is remarkable, and though the piece is most unlikely to have
been written by Frodo himself, the title shows that it was associated with the
dark and despairing dreams which visited him in March and October during his
last three years. But there were certainly other traditions concerning Hobbits
that were taken by the 'wandering-madness', and if
they ever returned, were afterwards queer and uncommunicable. The thought of the
Sea was ever-present in the background of hobbit imagination; but fear of it and
distrust of all Elvish lore, was the prevailing mood in the Shire at the end of
the Third Age, and that mood was certainly not entirely dispelled by the events
and changes with which that Age ended.